Shaun Pollock, the man for all seasons; Hansie a King’s ransom of insanity

On June 1 2002, Hansie Cronje, the former South African cricket captain and the man whose life had been destroyed by the King commission into match-fixing, was killed in a plane crash in the Outeniqua Mountains.

My brother kneels, so saith Kabir,
To stone and brass in heathen wise,
But in my brother’s voice I hear
My own unanswered agonies.
His God is as his fates assign,
His prayer is all the world’s — and mine.
— Rudyard Kipling, The Prayer

Earth-shattering!

Perhaps due to a lifetime of defending people visited by the criminal justice system or maybe because I loved the skipper, I felt the impact of this final blow far more than the initial one. The day I learned for the first time that Hansie was being charged, I remember joking with the person who broke the news to me that it was like hearing that they had just shot Bambi.

But they had just shot Bambi and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men would ensure that Hansie would never get up again.

Yet, for once, I’m not naming names — I’d rather just call this one as I saw it then and as I see it now. Let those who believe that it is their conduct that is being referred to herein take a good, long, hard look at themselves in the mirror.

It’s the very least you can do.

The advice given to Wessels Johannes Cronje in 2000, at a time when his whole world was crashing down around him, was designed to benefit only those who were guiding him at the time.

It was a point in time when match-fixing was rife and almost every team in the world was tainted with scandal and rumour.

Cronje, a man in an extremely high-profile position, was being accused by certain foreign prosecutors of this career-ending crime. The media, sensing blood, were already in a feeding frenzy, turning every morsel into a meal fit for a king. The cricketing fraternity was in disarray and struggling to come to terms with allegations of match-fixing that had severe implications for the sport.

In the middle of this madness, terrified and bewildered, Hansie Cronje had turned to people in the hope that they could somehow bring calm to this most vicious of storms. But it was not to be because that storm was merely wind when weighed up against the hurricane that they would deliberately unleash and which would batter him into oblivion.

How else do you explain the admissions and the media circus that followed?

How else do you explain the King commission?

How else do you explain the destruction of Hansie Cronje while the rest of the world’s players were to ride out this storm out with impunity? Not for them confessions, commissions and finally condemnation.

Because the only way that this thing should have been handled was to tell him to shut his mouth and let things play out — which, as it turned out, was the way the rest of the world’s cricketers did it. Not surprisingly, they were able to finish their careers in the ordinary course.

This is so basic it beggars belief that anyone could have suggested otherwise.

What happened can only be explained by asking who benefited from turning Hansie’s life into a media circus and then later abandoning him when it became expedient. Who was prepared to destroy this man by making those admissions? That they would inevitably cost him his career and so much more was simple logic.

We also have to ask why, while every other cricketing nation was protecting its players against these accusations, we were feeding ours to the wolves. While they threw a protective cloak over their favoured sons, we hung ours out to dry before a commission, forced upon us by parties who could not have been more honest in their endeavours to confess to someone else’s sins and step into the limelight.

Destroy and ridicule — a fallen angel.

Denied his final place in the sun by those who prized fame and fortune far above their humanity.

Unlike the man who was to assume the captaincy from Cronje, Shaun Maclean Pollock.

Neil Johnson commentating for the SABC described Polly as not only the greatest player with whom he had ever played, but also the greatest man he had ever met; a man who had stayed true to himself and remained consistent in an inconsistent world.

And that is the true genius of Polly — to emerge through the maelstrom that is international cricket with his priorities in check.

His description of the 13-year journey that left his marriage, dignity and decency untouched was testimony to Pollock, the man — forever a gentleman who, in his closing speech at the Wanderers, paid tribute to a wife who had made it all special, and to a Lord and Saviour who had made it all possible.

If there is such a thing as a cricketing dynasty, then Polly, the son of Peter and nephew of Graeme Pollock, two of South Africa’s greatest cricketers, must surely have been born into it.

Where his dad was quick, Shaun was more your fast-medium seam-bowler.

Where uncle Graeme was one of the greatest batsmen of all time, Shaun was no slouch with the bat either — how often were we to witness Polly coming in lower down the order and slaughtering bowlers during one-day internationals? There is no doubt that but for his bowling and captaincy duties he may well have established himself far higher up the batting order.

The combination of those genes gave rise to one of the greatest all-rounders South Africa has produced. This was borne out by his consistent topping of the ICC rankings, where even now he sits atop the bowler’s rankings in ODIs.

From the time he debuted against England in 1995 until his retirement in February 2008, Shaun Pollock was a role model to every cricketer around the world.

Whether he was captaining the Proteas or playing for the Dolphins or Warwickshire, Polly always gave his best — forever conducting himself as a gentleman while remaining true to his principles and beliefs.

His statistics are impressive and reflect an incredible bowling accuracy that struck fear into opponents — hardly surprising, therefore, that he has been ranked number one in the world in both Tests and ODIs as a bowler and an all-rounder. His batting, supposedly the weaker of his disciplines, saw him rise to a career-best 37th in Tests and 34th in ODIs.

But his greatest achievement in this day of media hype and instant success or failure was his ability to retain his dignity and his humility — to accept leadership and then relinquishing it to throw his weight behind his captain.

It was an attitude that would earn him the love and respect of a grateful nation which, as his captain admitted, saw an outpouring of heartfelt emotion as never before for an individual South African sportsman.

If you weren’t moved by the scenes of South Africans paying tribute to one of their favourite sons, you won’t be moved. It was a real lump-in-the-throat, goosebumps-on-your-goosebumps experience.

The real statistics that define Shaun Maclean Pollock are the number of tributes pouring in from his peers, the massive response from the fans to his retirement and the genuine affection we witnessed from his family, friends and teammates during those final games.

In 2003, Wisden named him as their cricketer of the year.

In 2007, he was named as South Africa’s cricketer of the year.

In 2008, Polly was saluted as a great captain, player, role model and, most importantly, as a man.

Year at whose open’d, wide-flung door I sing!
Year of the purpose accomplish’d!
Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!
(No mere Doge of Venice now, wedding the Adriatic;)
I see, O year, in you, the vast terraqueous globe, given, and giving all,
Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the New World;
The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival garland,
As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.
— Walt Whitman, Passage to India

His place in the sun assured — here is a man.